B'nai Jeshurun is a
non-denominational
A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination.
The term has been used in the context of various faiths, including Jainism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoro ...
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
synagogue
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...
located at 257 West
88th Street and 270 West
89th Street, on the
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
New York, United States.
The synagogue building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in June 1989.
History
Founded in 1825, Bnai Jeshurun was the second synagogue founded in New York and the third-oldest
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...
synagogue in the United States.
The synagogue was founded by a coalition of young members of
Congregation Shearith Israel
The Congregation Shearith Israel (), often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 2 West 70th Street, at Central Park West, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, Unit ...
, immigrants, and the descendants of immigrants from the
German and
Polish lands. It was the stated intention to follow the "German and Polish ''minhag'' (rite)." The order of prayers followed that of the Ashkenazi
Great Synagogue of London, and the congregation sought the guidance of the British chief Rabbi
Solomon Hirschell on matters of ritual. They first held services on
Pearl Street, and dedicated their first building on Elm Street in Manhattan in 1829.
The first rabbi,
Samuel Myer Isaacs, was appointed in 1839, but a public notice from 1845 indicates that there were disagreements over who should lead B'nai Jeshurun. By 1850, the congregation had grown large enough to make it necessary to build a new synagogue. A building on Greene Street
was dedicated on September 25, 1851, and the Jewish newspaper ''Asmonean'' described the edifice and its builders as admirable.
Its rabbi in the 1850s and 1860s, when it was frequently called "the Greene Street Synagogue", was
Morris Jacob Raphall.
By 1852, it had started a Hebrew school open to the entire city's Jews, of all varieties, and by 1854 had opened a separate school building a few doors down Greene Street.
B'nai Jeshurun had a cemetery on 32nd Street, which was in use until 1851, when the city banned burials in the area.
At that time, they jointly created a cemetery named
Beth Olom in
Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, but continued to maintain the older cemetery. By 1875, the Manhattan cemetery was becoming derelict, and the congregation sold it to developers in 1875, moving those buried there to its new cemetery. The old location is now occupied by the back portion of the
Hotel Pennsylvania
The Hotel Pennsylvania was a hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, across from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. Opened in 1919, it was once the largest hotel in the world. It remained t ...
, approximately where the loading dock and sports club entrance are situated.
In 1864, the congregation moved yet again, to a new building on 34th Street,
the parcel later became part of the site of the
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...
Macy's
Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...
store. Driven by the rapid expansion of the city, they moved yet again in the spring of 1885 to
Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...
at 65th Street. That building was designed by
Rafael Guastavino and Schwarzmann & Buchman. Less than a year later, a fire did extensive damage to the building. Reports rated the damage at $35,000. B'nai Jeshurun was temporarily relocated to Congregation
Ahawath Chesed, now Central Synagogue, on
Lexington Avenue
Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street (Manhattan), 131st Street to Gra ...
, which ironically had a fire of its own within the month, leaving both congregations homeless.
Henry Jacobs was another long-serving rabbi. He had a 17-year tenure, ending in January 1893.
The present building, located at 257 West 88th Street, between
Broadway and
West End Avenue, was dedicated in 1917. It was designed by
Henry B. Herts, a congregant and celebrated theater architect, with Walter S. Schneider.
[ ''See also:'' ] In addition to its place on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
, the synagogue was included in the New York City Riverside Drive-West End Historic District created in 1990. The muqarna-studded ceiling was redesigned following its collapse during renovations in the early 1990s and was replaced with a future-invoking space frame back-lit to simulate a nighttime sky
Breakaway congregations
B'nai Jeshurun's original founders broke from the city's only synagogue, Shearith Israel, in 1825, in order to create an Ashkenazi congregation. Subsequently, B'nai Jeshurun members broke away to form new synagogues several times.
In 1828, at a time of rapid growth in the New York Jewish community, a group left B'nai Jeshurun to found
Ansche Chesed.
In 1845,
Temple Shaaray Tefila was founded by 50 primarily
English and
Dutch Jews who had been members of B'nai Jeshurun.
Affiliation
B'nai Jeshurun took a leading role in founding the Board of Directors of American Israelites in 1859. By 1874, there were divisions within the congregation over remaining strictly Orthodox or adopting ideas from the Reform movement, and by 1875, it was in litigation,
with the Reform movement ultimately winning in court. The Board of Delegates affiliated with the Reform movement's
Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1878, but in 1884 it left. Two years later, it also supported the founding of the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...
(JTS) in 1886, a school formed to support Orthodoxy in combating the Reform movement.
In 1870, it worked with the other traditional (non-
Reform) synagogues of the city to develop a uniform ''
siddur
A siddur ( ''sīddūr'', ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.'
Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, ''tef ...
''. In 1889, the congregation published its edition of the prayer book. These activities took place prior to the founding of the Conservative movement, and both versions of the siddur followed
Orthodox practice.
When
Solomon Schechter took over the Jewish Theological Seminary, he used it as a base to create a "conservative" set of reforms to traditional Judaism. B'nai Jeshurun joined his United Synagogue of America, now the
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. In the late 1980s, the congregation left the
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
movement and became
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
.
Contemporary
A spiritual and demographic renaissance began in 1985, with the arrival of Rabbi
Marshall Meyer. At the same time, the congregation introduced musical Shabbat services that drew from both Sephardic and Chassidic musical traditions.
A "
Stonewall Shabbat
Seder" was first held at B'nai Jeshurun in 1995. In 2018, B'nai Jeshurun announced its decision to officiate
interfaith marriage
Interfaith marriage, sometimes called interreligious marriage or mixed marriage, is marriage between spouses professing and being legally part of different religions. Although interfaith marriages are often established as civil marriages, in so ...
s if the couple promised to raise their children as Jews, exclusively.
Notable clergy
* Rabbi
Samuel Myer Isaacs (1804–1878)
* Rabbi
Henry S. Jacobs (1876–1893)
* Rabbi
Stephen Samuel Wise (1893–1900)
* Rabbi
Joseph Mayor Asher (1901–1907)
* Rabbi
Judah Leon Magnes (1911–1912)
* Rabbi
Israel Goldstein (1918–1960)
* Rabbi
William Berkowitz (1950–1984)
* Rabbi
Marshall Meyer (1985–1993)
* Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon (1986–present)
* Hazzan Ari Priven (1989–present)
* Rabbi Marcelo R. Bronstein (1995–2017)
* Rabbi Felicia Sol (2001–present)
* Rabbi Rebecca Weintraub (2020–present)
See also
*
Oldest synagogues in the United States
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Ashkenazi synagogues in the United States
Byzantine Revival architecture in New York City
Byzantine Revival synagogues
German-Jewish culture in New York City
Polish-Jewish culture in New York City
Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan
Synagogues completed in 1917
Synagogues in Manhattan
Synagogues on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City
Unaffiliated synagogues in New York City
Upper West Side